.Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith, has declared Venezuela’s populist champion, President Hugo Chavez, to be an “anti-Semite,” that is, anti-Jewish. This accusation—political dynamite, particularly coming from such a respected and influential group which is a leading voice for the Jewish lobby in America—comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Although there had been rumblings about alleged anti- Semitic tendencies on the part of Chavez that appeared over the past several years in American Jewish newspapers and in magazines popular in the small (but influential) pro-Israel neoconservative policy-making circles, neither Foxman nor the ADL had ever formally weighed in on the matter. However, on February 5—in a prominently placed commentary published in The Washington Post (a newspaper that most definitely molds opinion among the capital city’s movers and shakers)—Foxman launched a fullforce attack on Chavez. The article was headlined flatly, without any uncertainty—“Chavez’s Anti-Semitism”— and alleged that there is a “rising wave of anti-Semitism” in Venezuela which he claimed can be traced to Chavez and his closest associates. Foxman charged that government officials and commentators in the official media in Argentina have been “rehashing the ancient canard about Jewish control, vilifying Jews and Israel as agents of imperialism, and adopting anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish financial influence.” The ADL complains that Chavez has actually endorsed “notorious anti-Semites in the media” and has “accused Israel of engaging in genocide against Arabs.” The ADL chief also expressed concern that Chavez has been friendly to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, among others whom the ADL says are “a verifiable threat to Israel and world Jewry.”Foxman pointed out that a close longtime Chavez advisor, the late Argentine nationalist Norberto Ceresole, was said to be a “holocaust denier,” that is, daring to question official versions ofWorldWar II history, something which is punishable by imprisonment in many Western nations that call themselves “democracies,” and which, at the same time, accuse Chavez of suppressing freedom of thought and expression in his country.This assault on Chavez came after a Jewish community center was raided by Venezuelan police, the second such raid over the past several years. But Foxman failed to mention that Venezuelan intelligence and law enforcement officials suspected illicit activities were taking place at the center—including arms smuggling—possibly connected to clandestine operations of Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad. So—without actually saying it—Foxman was suggesting that the Venezuelan government had no right to protect its sovereignty against possible subversive activity on its own soil. Chavez has always been an outspoken populist and nationalist and earlier caused upset when he said that “The world has wealth for all, but some minorities, the descendants of the same people that crucified Christ, have taken over all the wealth of the world.” Chavez also said that “the Pharisees” of modern times were outraged by his support for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in defiance of the U.S. and Israel. This ADL blast at Chavez in the influential Washington daily comes at a particularly dangerous time in U.S.-Venezuelan relations that have—like U.S. relations with most of the world—begun to deteriorate as a consequence of imperial actions by the United States in support of Israel, in particular the war against Iraq. However, Venezuela’s colorful Chavez, in many respects, has been more outspoken in criticism of the Bush regime than other world leaders. Just recently Chavez threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States if the U.S. courts uphold the freezing of Venezuelan assets in a dispute between Venezuela and the Exxon Mobil Oil conglomerate. Chavez has charged that the Bush administration was behind a coup attempt against him in 2002 and more recently asserted that the administration is supplying weapons and illicit cocaine— coming from factions in the rival neighboring Colombian regime—to anti-Chavez elements in Venezuela. Chavez said that the Bush administration is continuing in its efforts to build “a fifth column” to bring down his government. And based upon previous evidence about Bush intrigues against Chavez that have been featured in American Free Press, Chavez may be correct. Now the Bush administration has the all-out endorsement of the ADL, which deems Chavez to be a dangerous force that must be reckoned with.